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Millwood upset at himself, not weather

Millwood upset at himself, not weather

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Kevin Millwood

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MINNEAPOLIS -- There was some question after Sunday's 4-3 loss to the White Sox as to whether the Mariners asked umpiring crew chief Jim Joyce to stop the game and try to dry out the surface in what turned out to be a six-minute delay just before pitcher Kevin Millwood surrendered the go-ahead two-run home run to White Sox catcher Tyler Flowers.

Millwood had yelled out loudly on the seventh-inning pitch before umpires called for the grounds crew to spread Diamond Dry on some growing puddles around the infield during the heavy downpour, which was coming with two outs and the Mariners leading, 3-2.

But Millwood said Monday he yelled in frustration at himself for walking Jordan Danks, wasn't having trouble with his footing and didn't ask for any grounds crew help.

"No, I was just ticked that I walked the guy. That's all," Millwood said. "I just wanted to throw him a strike, get him to hit a fly ball to left field and get out of there."

Instead, the umpires chose to delay the game at that point, but didn't call for the tarp. Instead, dry sand was spread around, the game resumed, and on his second pitch after the delay, Millwood gave up the home run.

Two batters later, the umpires stopped the game completely to have the tarp come out and the rains never let up enough to resume action.

"After that walk, I thought Joyce said they were going to tarp the field," Millwood said. "Instead, they put the kitty litter down. I didn't know what to do. I was a little lost."

The Mariners huddled on the mound in the downpour for several minutes. Millwood walked at one point to the dugout and then went back out and threw some warmup pitches before the game resumed.

"I still felt good," he said. "Everything felt like it was still working. I just made a bad pitch."

Manager Eric Wedge said the umpires made the best call they could, but didn't get accurate information from weather forecasters.

"They can only work with the information they're getting, whether it's from the local or national forecasters," said Wedge. "The fact of the matter is, it wasn't tracked very well -- not by the umpires, but by the forecasters -- and it worked against us.

"The umpire was trying to make a go of it with the information he had. I went out right away when he did stop it and I wasn't very happy about it. But he assured me that with the information he had, we were going to play again. We were definitely going to get this thing going again. You have to trust that, but then the story changed."